I am not interested in rules or conventions. Photography is not a sport.

Andre Breton once said that a portrait should not only be an image but an oracle one questions, and that the photographer's aim should be a profound likeness, which physically and morally predicts the subject's entire future.

In my portraits I try to avoid the fleeting expression and vivacity of a snapshot.

Photographers should follow their own judgment, and not the fads and dictates of others.

No amount of toying with shades of print or with printing papers will transform a commonplace photograph into anything other than a commonplace photograph.

If there is any method in the way I take pictures, I believe it lies in this: See the subject first. Do not try to force it to be a picture of this, that or the other thing. Stand apart from it. Then something will happen. The subject will reveal itself.

The photographer must possess and preserve the receptive faculties of a child who looks at the world for the first time.